Sherline & Taig CNC Mill & Lathe Upgrades, Reviews for East Princeton, MA 01517
Numerous are interested in ISO20, IS030, BT30 and 5C headstocks for both Sherline and Taig mills and lathes in the East Princeton, MA. Automatic tool changers, or ATC, attract many people. There’s just on place to get the at a reasonable cost and that’s GlockCNC. Updating to a ISO20 or BT30 is perfect for the mill. Choosing a 5C is ideal for the lathes. Naturally, you would need to upgrade the headstock, bearings and motor. High speed balancing is likewise a perk. The availability of tooling for each of these designs is excellent. For 5C collet sets, you can get very good quality from Hardinge.
Sherline headstocks and parts can be found in a range of models from the factory. Typically ER16 and MT1. Both of which are very small. Sherline likewise uses WW collet sets for really small work. Mainly watchmakers and clockmakers utilize the WW collets. A lot of choose ER25, ER32 and even ER40 collet sizes with a bigger spindle travel through hole. The 5C collet for the Sherline lathe would be the best. For Sherline mills, many really do not care for the MT1 and barely like the ER16. An R8 spindle with a low profile would be best. It provides one of the most flexibility and many tool options. You can discover many evaluations on both the lathe and the mill. Popular models are the 2000, 5400, 4000 and 4500 in metric and inch. The also can be found in CNC, handbook and CNC ready variations. Just recently, they have actually added ballscrew versions for sale. This is far better than the older leadscrew type. Search the web if you want an evaluation or contrast of ballscrews compared to leadscrews. There are suppliers near East Princeton.
Taig likewise provides lathes and mills. It’s Sherlines primary competitors. In reality, you can find a great deal of videos and articles describing Taig vs Sherline. The Taig items use far more rigid ways and usually more “strong” overall. The Taig motors are quite weak, much like the Sherline motors. A high quality brushless motor can make the machine appear like an absolutely different mill or lathe. Taig also uses a great CNC prepared mill and lathe. You can also select their digital CNC system which utilizes closed-looped steppers and Mach3 software. The Taig spindles have the same problems as the Sherline. They are far too small. The only exception is the 5C collet headstock design they use. We will do an evaluation of the 5C in the future. The great thing is that they now provide a ballscrew alternative for their mill and lathe. Plus, the offer a “gang tool” lathe. The drawback with both produces is the absence of serious upgrades.
Sherline uses lots of parts and attachments, but not much to make it a better machine. To start with, they headstock uses poor quality bearings and the bearings are too small. This indicates the spindle itself requires to be small. A spindle with extremely little mass suggests the lathe or mill the finish quality won’t be as great and subject to vibration problems. For instance, they use numerous lathe devices, but you can’t get a 5C headstock or ER25, ER32 or ER40. Plus, the go through hole needs to be small since the bearings are small. There is a comparable issue with the mill. You can only use ER16 collets and this limits its use. Of course those in East Princeton, Massachusetts 01517 may have different needs.
There are other machine options too. You can also buy from Grizzly or Harbor Freight, along with other providers that offer Chinese mills and lathes. Obviously the quality isn’t real excellent. Many wind up either extremely disappointed or doing a great deal of modifications to get the machine to do what they want. Exceptional upgrades are ballscrews, upgraded brushless motor, encoder for threading and so on.
If you prefer to choose a CNC machine, your best option is the Centroid Acorn. The software application and hardware is far much better than Mach3 or many of the hardware options in the market. You can do stiff tapping and threading if you have an encoder. Plus, it offers consistent speed for turning applications. Mach3 and Mach4 were the standard for several years. However, they were cumbersome at finest and really only targeted at amature usage. Centroid is a well established industrial manufacture of mills. Much of which are 5 axis machines. The best servos to utilize for CNC on the Sherline or Taig are either DMM, Clearpath or GlockCNC brands. Combine that with the Centroid Acorn and you will have an effective machine. We will also produce reviews of the Taig CNC mill and Sherline CNC mill using the Acorn hardware.
What about a much better jaw chuck for the lathe? Numerous grumble that the little chucks won’t hold steel for cutting. The part will just fall out. On alternative is to purchase a headstock with a jaw chuck adapter integrated in. This can open up more alternatives for 5″ or 6″ chuck. Specifically if you go with larger bearings.